Dig this, Obamaniacs   .   .   .

I got a kick out of this piece by some guy in England. It sums up the "Messiah" label pretty well.

The always more insightful John Stossel

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/dire_news_from_my_colleagues.html

The always insightful Thomas Friedman

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/opinion/20friedman.html?em&ex=1216785600&en=d99abe61c15d216c&ei=5087%0A

Obama in Colorado

So Obama was in Colorado last week and needed to do a live video feed addressing the US Steelworkers Union convention. I got called for work as a Grip/Utility for the shoot and even though I have another day job these days I took the day off from that and went to check this out. It was a good decision.

Obama was the same in person as he comes across on camera, friendly, charismatic and seems to be the genuine article. After the shoot he shook all of our hands and as agreed upon by our little crew I asked his handler if we could get a picture with him. (I am the dork running back in to the photo and leaning in.)

McCain is going to be here tomorrow but I have not gotten the call for work...oh well.

George Carlin, RIP

George Carlin is dead at 71.

I must admit a soft spot for George, as I have a taste for intelligent irreverence in comedy. It cuts through the bourgeois fog we often sleepwalk through in our day-to-day lives.

But Carlin, who was known for, among other things, “the Seven Words That Can Never Be Said on Television,” cut himself off from the light with such statements as:

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. . . There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have." (2004)

He was right that prudery is unhealthy.

But he was wrong about religious superstition, and that reluctance to fully embrace sexual frankness is based on such superstition. Granted, many people who call themselves religious mistake prudery for spirituality, just as many mistake following a checklist of rules for spirituality.

The real reason most people are uneasy with full sexual frankness has to do with the sacredness of sexuality. Most of us would be uneasy in the face of open propositioning, but not because we would not like to engage in some of these activities. Rather, we’re uneasy because we sense on some level that sexuality is so powerful that it can destroy a life as well as bring life into being. Men of another era used to name hurricanes after women, and called battleships “she” instead of “it,” recognizing the powerful forces moving them in their own lives. These same men, if they outlived their wives, often died very soon afterward. Carlin trivialized that which we knew was not trivial.

So again, when we heard the seven words you can’t say, we either recoiled, or laughed uneasily, because of the man’s audacity. Those who laughed without reservation have stunted souls, able to enjoy the profane but not appreciate the sacred. Unfortunately, today such people are legion.

Under Mr. Carlin’s system, he is now mere food for worms. I hope he said, in the moment of mortal extremity, “God, maybe I don’t have all the answers. Here I come,” thereby saving himself.

“Requiescat In Pace”

FIscal conservatives

It is no surprise that the president who inherited the biggest federal budget surplus of all is leaving his successor the largest deficit of any president.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2037782220080620

George Will

The article is "The Gas Prices We Deserve", and it's vintage George Will. It's probably lame to just link to articles in this space, but there's no way I could make this argument bettter than him.

PJ O'Rourke visits the Field Museum

Hey; we can start a flame war over the war, or whether Bush looks like various chimps--

But lets have some fun instead. Humorist P.J. O'Rourke (libertarian / conservative) visited the field Museum in Chicago recently, and wrote about his experiences in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard. Any of you on the left wondering why we on the right are aligned as we are should reading this entertaining article.